


An Old Folk's Guide to Causing Trouble

by PersonalSpin



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adopted Children, Family Feels, Fluff and Humor, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Irresponsible Necromancy, M/M, Old Married Couple, Other, Parents Behaving Badly, Post-Canon, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-23 11:06:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11988525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersonalSpin/pseuds/PersonalSpin
Summary: “I fully intend to commit a number of petty crimes to draw our children home. If we should return home with some more of that Antivan vintage, it is all to the good.”Dorian and the Bull, now both elderly and happily retired from world-saving, have to resort to petty crime so their kids will call. Along the way they terrorize some Orleisians, go to the opera, and adopt a couple of strays. It's a nice way to keep busy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my artists [HubbaBubba](https://hubbabubbagumpop.tumblr.com/) and [Shae-c](http://shae-c-art.tumblr.com/) for their art, and [Dee](https://dichotomous-dragon.tumblr.com/) for her beta-ing help. <3
> 
> All remaining mistakes are my own -- I had a lot of trouble finishing this. If you spot any mistakes or parts that read a little weirdly, please be gentle when you point them out. <3
> 
>  **writing-prompt-s** said: An elderly couple takes to petty crime to see their superhero kids who no longer call.

The Bull can tell Dorian’s pissed before he even stomps into their kitchen, where Bull is keeping warm beside the oven and watching the bread rise. “Amatus!” he yells, already frowning deeply. The Bull hasn’t been frightened by that expression in the twenty years he’s known Dorian. Instead, he notes Dorian must have been in the study his spectacles still perched on his nose.

As soon as Dorian gets within reach, the Bull pulls him in by his waist and plants a kiss on his cheek. Dorian tries not to melt but he leans into the Bull easily, stroking his neck.

“Something up, big guy?” the Bull asks, with a guileless expression that makes Dorian snort indelicately, just as it was meant to.

“Do you know how long it’s been since we received a letter, a note, a single word from any of our children?” Dorian asks.

Age hasn’t clouded his mind yet, still as sharp as the axe by the door to their villa on the Nevarran-Tevinter border. That said, the Bull can’t be sure when he’d last heard from Krem, or the girls, and he says as much to Dorian.

Dorian sighs, tapping his fingers against the Bull’s shoulder. “I looked and it’s been months since any of them wrote. Sera in particular hasn’t made herself known since Cloudreach, and that was only to say that she was in Val Royeux seeing her Aunt Sera. She didn’t even mention sending any chocolates or guimauves.”

Dorian looks put-out, and the Bull knows it’s not just because Nevarran sweetmeats are half as good and twice as expensive. House Pavus wasn’t yet so fallen that they couldn’t afford to keep the Bull’s sweet tooth in the manner to which he had become accustomed -- even if Dorian hadn’t been a Magister for the better part of a decade. He’d given up his seat in the Magisterium to his Lucerni protege and come home to their villa to raise their kids -- now apparently too busy saving the world from darkspawn, evil cultists, and dragons to manage writing their parents more than once every couple of months.

The Bull’s starting to frown too as he puts his arms around Dorian. “They could have just gotten lost somewhere along the way, kadan,” he says, and the Bull knows he’s being fairer to their kids then they deserve. “Didn’t Maxen say she was somewhere out in the Western Approach?”

Dorian is silent for a moment in thought. The Bull pets his hip as he waits for him to think. “Nothing is forbidding them from visiting outside of the annums. We aren’t yet so old that we’re intolerable.”

The Bull knew Dorian spent time in the study looking over invitations to fashionable soirees, hosted by the politically adventurous sort who thought being seen with the renegade Magister and his husband would give them an edge. Sometimes they even went, usually so they could cause trouble by bringing along Aunt Sera and Vivienne. Jospehine and Adaar still held the occasional party, and sometimes the whole gang would show up and Val Royeaux would need the rest of the month to recover. People were probably still talking about the time the Divine had snorted wine out of her nose because Varric had caught her off-guard with a dirty joke.

None of the parties mattered the same way Dorian’s political career hadn’t mattered, or the Bull going out with his Chargers. Nothing mattered as much as their family.

“No, we’re not intolerable,” the Bull says.

Dorian snorts again. “Are you saying you wouldn’t be upset if your Chargers forgot to write to their Chief?”

Somewhere in their study was a stack of letters from his boys -- updates from Rocky and Stitches about their kids, pressed flowers from Dalish. Dorian likes to call them his reports, but the Bull had never expected them. “They’re good kids, they’re just busy. Like we used to be.”

“Only we seem to have to failed to instil in them the importance of writing to their parents,” Dorian says, moving away from the Bull so he can pace around their small kitchen.

The pair of them had raised their kids as best as they’d known how, and loved them fiercely, and cried not a little when they’d left to continue what their dads had started. The Bull couldn’t believe in a world where their kids didn’t love them but Dorian’s experience of fatherhood had always been more fraught than his. Their silence hurts Dorian, even if he chooses to hide it behind outrage and pacing. Seeing his kadan hurting is worse than losing his eye.

“Hey, c’mere.” Dorian gives the Bull a flat look he knows isn’t a rejection. He only has to spread his arms and Dorian is drawn into his embrace like an inevitability, an old river flowing towards the sea. Dorian smells like old books and ink, the lotion he rubbed into his arms that morning before helping the Bull with his horn balm. He smells like them, and home. “What do you need from me?” the Bull asks, looking up at his kadan.

Dorian smiles like the sun coming out from the behind the clouds and presses a kiss between the Bull’s horns, lingering there for no reason other than closeness. “You know me, Amatus,” Dorian begins, and the Bull gives him a little squeeze because he likes to think that he does, “I shan’t be satisfied now that I know something is amiss. It only remains to fix it.”

“You came storming in here with a plan already?”

Dorian sniffs. “Naturally. I am a talented necromancer, the scion of one of the most powerful houses in Tevinter, and largely responsible for dragging the entirety of my country kicking and screaming into the Dragon Age. I’m more than capable of outsmarting my own children.”

“Modest too,” the Bull says mildly.

Dorian levels an accusatory finger at him. “And you, Amatus, are still more than a match for anything this blighted world can and has thrown at you. Giants, behemoths, dragons.” The Bull can feel his ears start to go pink at the tips. Dorian smirks, his eyes going soft and lidded. “I am not a man accustomed to sitting around and waiting, not when I can bring it into being through my own actions, and neither are you.”

“Not chasing after them, then,” the Bull asks, and Dorian’s smirk widens. “You’d need something big to get them here.”

“Between the two of us, we should be able to manage something,” Dorian says smoothly. “If they’re so preoccupied saving Thedas, then perhaps they should come save the parts of Thedas nearer to us.”

The Bull grunts, squinting up at Dorian. “Any rules for this?”

“No hurting anyone,” Dorian says. “No charging at things with axes.”

“Taking the fun out of it.”

“I’ll not help you if you lame yourself causing trouble,” Dorian retorts, tweaking the Bull’s ear. They both know he’s lying.

“Hunter Fell’s a good place to start.” The Bull scratches at his jaw; he’d be lying if he said he isn’t looking forward to stirring up a little trouble with Dorian. They could both stand to be a little busier, like they used to be. “For big, it needs to be Nevarra City. Heard they have a new opera by that guy you like.”

Dorian beams, gifting the Bull with another kiss. “Amatus, you spoil me. Now come. We’ll have to pack carefully if we’re to become rogues and vagabonds.”

***

They leave their housekeeper a note before leaving the very next morning. They’re both too old to spend all day in a saddle without crippling themselves, or all night finding every rock in Nevarra by lying on them, so they travel slowly and stay at inns along the road to Hunter Fell. An inn every night is still something of a luxury in the Bull’s mind, but it’s hard to complain about clean sheets and warm food -- especially when all the riding gives his knee something to complain about. Marigold has a smooth gait, but nothing beats lying back in a bed with Dorian’s magically warmed hands while he gently berates the Bull for not taking greater care.

Their trip to Hunter Fell takes longer than it would have when they were younger men, but the Bull thinks it gives them time to enjoy themselves a little more. Winter has long since given way to spring and the warming breeze carries the scent of the wildflowers that dip towards the slow-moving waters of the Minanter. Sitting in the soft grass, stealing kisses from his kadan while their horses graze over the hill and a bird sings sweetly somewhere; the Bull’s lived long enough to enjoy the peace he’s earned, and the love he’s lucky enough to share it with.

It’s once they’ve made it into town that they decide to start their reign of terror, albeit slowly. They get settled in at their favourite inn and go for a late evening walk -- for ‘inspiration’, Dorian claims. There are worse ways to spend a warm evening, the sun sitting low in the sky and in no hurry to vacate. They walk through town, Dorian’s hand in the Bull’s elbow, and the Bull only rolls his eyes fondly when Dorian leads them to his favourite wine seller. “An elaborate ploy just to refill the wine cellar, kadan.”

“I fully intend to commit a number of petty crimes to draw our children home. If we should return home with some more of that Antivan vintage, it is all to the good,” Dorian says glibly, not caring who might overhear them. Everybody here knows not to pay any mind to Sers Pavus and Bull’s eccentricities.

They walk into the wine seller’s to see an Orleisian chevalier demanding all of the man’s attention and not a small amount of his wares. They had passed a few masked groups on the road and the Bull had noted them in the same uninterested way Dorian did. Now, however, one of them is standing between him and a delicious red from the vineyards of Treviso. Dorian scowls deeply, his hand on the Bull’s elbow twitching like he wants to light the arrogant noble’s arse on fire. The Bull gives his hand a squeeze and looks down at him with an expression that isn’t exactly discouraging. Dorian looks back, thinking for a moment, before he sighs and approaches the beleaguered man behind the counter. “Amon, good evening.”

“Ser Pavus, Ser Bull,” the wine seller says, smiling with genuine pleasure at the pair of them. The chevalier turns to them, irritation at the interruption clear in the stiff line of his shoulders. His eyes flick over them from behind his mask and the Bull isn’t surprised when the chevalier looks away again in obvious dismissal; he knows the picture they make. Dorian’s dressed in simple travelling clothes, his boots well worn and several years out of fashion -- Bull’s leaning heavily on a dawnstone cane, his silver eyepatch catching the fading light and his scarred chest bare beneath his sherwani that’s his only concession to his age. Hardly the look of a powerful Tevinter Magister and Ben-Hassrath agent, but they hadn’t been either of those things in long time.

The Bull snorts quietly but Dorian bristles. He smiles at Amon with all his teeth, a plan already forming behind his eyes, and the Bull’s content to stand back and watch his kadan show why he earned his reputation as a terror in the Magisterium. “Amon, do you have any of that Antivan vintage still? It was well-recommended, Amicus, but we finished the bottle far too quickly.”

“Of course, Ser Pavus-”

“And I’ll have two bottles of the same,” the chevalier demands, tapping his fingers on the counter impatiently. The Bull almost laughs to see the man oblivious to the venomous look Dorian directs at him from behind a sharp smile.

He strikes as soon as Amon disappears into the backroom. “What beautiful rings you have,” Dorian coos, placing a hand on the many elaborate rings on the chevalier’s fingers. “Stormheart and onyx? You must stand out amongst your friends with such daring taste, so unlike the season’s fashion.”

The chevalier recoils from Dorian’s touch like he’d lit his hands on fire. “These are family heirlooms,” he spits, almost clutching his hand to his chest like Dorian intends to wrestle the rings from him. There’s no danger of that happening -- they’re unforgivably _Orleisian_.

“It’s good that you wear them,” Dorian continues, smiling blithely as if this isn’t perfectly calculated. “Too many young men are slaves to the changing fashions, buying new rings every week. I commend your thriftiness, monsieur.”

The chevalier makes a choked off noise that’s pure offense, which is when Amon comes out of the back room with their orders. The Orleisian grabs his wine without a word of thanks and immediately spins on his heel to storm out. He collides chest first into the Bull and growls at him before pushing past. “Pardon me, monsieur,” the Bull says to his retreating back.

“Apologies, Sers,” Amon sighs. “With the warmer weather they come across the Fields of Ghislain for the hunting. It seems to me, though, that they spend more time drinking than hunting. Good for business, but they are too fond of drawing swords on people and not rabbits.”

Dorian hands over more coin than needed for the wine and tucks his hand back into Bull’s elbow as they leave, where it belongs.

“What did you do to his rings?”

“Complimented them, Amatus, didn’t you hear?” Dorian gives the end of his moustache a satisfied twist. “There might also have been a minor charm placed. Onyx takes to magic so beautifully.”

“Spontaneous combustion might be a little outside of _malum prohibitum_.”

“It’s not going to set him on fire, that’s much too crude,” Dorian says, as though he hasn’t torched his fair share of Venatori over the years. “I developed the charm as a young man in need of a little entertain and some minor revenge against my peers in the Circle. There were a number of corvids that lived on the grounds and it was well known that unattended jewelry was liable to disappear.” The Bull starts to laugh, guessing how this story ends, and Dorian’s smirk stretches from ear to ear. “The charm simply encourages them to a single-minded degree. He’ll lose his rings to a bird and the world will be better off without such appallingly gaudy jewelry. I’ve done a service today, the children would be proud.”

“Kadan, you’re magnificent,” the Bull says, pulling him in by his hand to place a kiss on the dark skin under each of Dorian’s eyes. Dorian takes the kisses as his due, but when the Bull tries to move away he grabs a hold of a horn to keep the Bull in place for a proper kiss.

Dorian makes a surprised noise and draws back a little, arching an eyebrow at the Bull. “Is that a staff in your robe or are you just happy to see me?” he asks archly.

“I couldn’t let you have all the fun,” the Bull says as he pulls an Antivan vintage out of his sherwani, where he’d stashed it after relieving the Orleisian of it. “He wouldn’t have appreciated it anyway.”

Dorian chokes out something, like he wants to call the Bull ridiculous or absurd, but it’s hard to hear when it’s spoken directly into the Bull’s lips. Even after so many years together, they can still surprise each other.

The Orleisians in Hunter Fell soon come under siege. The local wildlife makes it their mission to liberate them of their jewelry -- coincidentally, not long after they happen to sneer at an aging Tevinter. The Bull gets his fun in as well, developing sticky fingers that would make Sera proud. He doesn’t keep most of what he steals -- except for the pastries. They cause enough trouble that on their last day in town, the innkeeper warns them over breakfast, “be careful, Sers, town has become very strange. There are afflicted birds and many say there are thieves abroad.”

Dorian thanks the innkeeper kindly for her warning and the two of them spend their last day quietly, which is almost as fun. Their leisurely tour of the bookshops is interrupted when an Orleisian decides to saunter up to the Bull in the street. "What a ferocious beast thou art!" he exclaims, to the obvious titillation of a pair of masked ladies who cower theatrically behind their fans.

The Bull leans on his cane and idly debates how to respond to the strutting idiot in front of him, who seems a little put out that the Bull doesn’t immediately play along. Dorian splutters and mutters something uncomplimentary of the noble’s parentage -- until he goes for his sword, and then Dorian pushes past the Bull to stalk up to him.

“How dare you. What world do you think it is,” Dorian asks darkly, “that you are even a fraction of the man the Iron Bull is?”

“This does not concern you,” the noble says, taking his hand from his sword hilt to fold his arms over his chest.

Dorian takes another step and the noble backs away from him. “When you threaten my husband, it concerns me. Leave, before you have more to fear than just my tongue.” He lifts his chin and looks down the end of his nose at the Orleisian, who fails to look like he doesn’t regret his decisions. His two ladyfriends rescue him, dragging him away by the arms.

Dorian spins on his heel and marches back to the Bull. He reaches out to grab his arm, but rather than dragging the Bull away, Dorian slips his hand into the Bull’s and rests his forehead on the Bull’s shoulder. The Bull kisses his temple and they take a moment, just the two of them, not caring who sees them standing together.

“You know it gets me hot when you defend my honour like that,” the Bull says after a while.

Dorian snorts, drawing back to smack him in the chest. “As if that’s all I’m planning to do, Amatus.”

Dorian’s plan involves getting much more _magisterial_ , as he wryly puts it. His care when packing suddenly makes a lot more sense when he pulls out black robes and his make up pots. “What were you imagining when you packed those?” The Bull asks, standing at Dorian’s shoulder while he peers at his reflection in the vanity mirror. His hands are steady as he applies his kohl and darkens his eyelids dramatically.

“When one commits to causing trouble, one has to enter a certain mindset,” Dorian says, dusting gold powder on the apples of his cheeks. His face is steadily transformed to something like the fearsome image of the Tevinter Magister most of the South believes in, but the look isn’t complete until Dorian pulls the robes on. They had been the very height of fashion when he’d left the Magisterium, with layers of sheer black silk that lie almost flat when Dorian is still. When he moves, the robes flow around him like a mass of tendrils, making Dorian look both three times larger and immensely more powerful.

The Bull shivers and makes a small noise that he doesn’t try to hide. Dorian shoots him a look that says he knows exactly how much this is doing it for him. He goes back to preening in the mirror, however, as if his reaction is of no consequence. His haughty is attitude already settling around him like another layer of gauzy silk, the sleeves falling to his elbows so the gold on his wrists and fingers gleams.

The Bull growls and walks up behind him, fitting his hands around Dorian’s hips and drawing him back against him. “And who am I in this?” he asks lowly, his lips close enough to brush against Dorian’s ear. Dorian wiggles in his grasp and gasps, but the Bull can see the flush starting to make its way down his chest and all his wiggling does nothing but rub his pert ass against the Bull’s crotch. “Am I the hero who stops the evil Magister before claiming him as my prize? Or was I seduced by your promises of pleasure into helping you terrorise some Orleisians as part of your evil plans?”

Dorian stretches in his hold and wraps his arms around the Bull’s neck, arching to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. His eyes fix on the mirror and the Bull notes the way his breath catches at the sight of them. It is a very pretty picture, Dorian caught and looking like there’s nowhere he’d prefer to be.

“Both have their charms,” Dorian says breathlessly. He kisses Bull again and pulls back, giving his reflection a last once-over. Apparently satisfied, he turns to give the Bull a dangerous smirk. “For right now, you are my slighted husband and I am about to put the fear of the Maker into the men who insulted you.” Dorian smoothes his hands down the front of his robes. “When I’ve accomplished that, then you can rip my clothes off.”

It’s easy enough to find the Orleisian’s camp at the edge of town, on the edges of the Fields of Ghislain. They only have to follow the smell of booze and overindulgence to a ring of canvas tents and heavy rugs around a large bonfire. They hide behind a hill and listen to what sounds like a party already in full swing in the Orleisian style, with loud laughter and music and looking set to only get louder.

Dorian reaches for his staff, preparing to go over the hill, when the Bull stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Dorian turns to him with half a question that gets lost in the soft press of the Bull’s lips on his. The Bull takes his time kissing him as Dorian deserves, slow and wet until Dorian sighs and melts into him. The Bull draws back slowly, his eyes catching on Dorian’s wet lips. “For luck,” he says, his voice rough.

Dorian opens his eyes, blinking slowing, before breaking into an enormous grin. “Hardly needed.”

The Fields of Ghislain give Dorian plenty of material to work with, unfortunately for the Orleisians. Dorian walks to the top of the hill and lifts his staff, power emanating from the focus crystal, and it’s not long before the earth begins to roil and crack. Skeletal hands reach out and grasp at the air, hauling what remains of their worldly bodies behind them. Human shoulders break the surface followed by human skulls, their eye sockets alight with the spirits now inhabiting them.

A skeleton pulls itself free and looks to Dorian for guidance. He simply points at the camp. The spirit makes no acknowledgement as it twists its borrowed bones towards the ring of tents and begins to shamble towards them. It leads the slow moving hoard, clothed in rusted metal and rotted leather, with the remains of rabbits and foxes darting between leg bones.

It isn’t long before someone screams and the music stutters and dies. The voices go from confused to terrified in seconds. More screams split the air and the Bull sees several Orleisians running for town, clutching their skirts if they’re lucky enough to still be wearing them. The skeletons grab at them, catching handfuls of silk and snagging loose jewelry, while the animals snap at their heels. The terrified nobles easily escape with no harm except to their dignity. They have enough time in fact to point at Dorian, posed like a conductor on the hill, and cry in Orleisian and Common at the fearsome figure he cuts against the setting sun.

The Bull has seen Dorian summon spirits to inhabit the recently deceased, the blood still warm and oozing from their mortal wounds. They had moved with a single-minded focus; no pain existed, or death, and so Dorian’s soldiers had nothing to fear as they threw themselves into the melee.

These skeletons are almost comically placid, tripping over themselves and fumbling to catch even the slowest Orleisian. Some of the nobles have the presence of mind to draw their swords and Dorian runs back down the hill, skidding to a halt beside the Bull. “They should last long enough to cover our escape,” Dorian says, catching the Bull by the arm and pulling him away. “I wouldn’t bet on it though, with how fond they are of hitting things with swords.”

The colour is high on his face and his eyes are alight with the same fire that’s turned his smirk toothy and dangerous. The Bull reels Dorian in by his hand and Dorian goes to him eagerly. They almost don’t escape. They have to hastily detangle themselves, Dorian from around the Bull’s shoulders and horns and the Bull from the inside of Dorian’s robes, when they hear voices on the other side of the hill.

Every Orleisian they meet on the road to Nevarra City warns them of a violent apostate in the area, although the reports of Dorian’s criminality are greatly exaggerated. Nevarrans as a whole are bracingly blasé about necromancy; an innkeeper outside Nevarra City cheerfully claims to have met the man who duelled Dorian to a standstill. Dorian smiles politely as she recounts how the brave noble faced his skeletal servants while the necromancer stood at the centre of a swirling vortex of magic. “He certainly sounds fearsome,” Dorian remarks dryly. “I’m sure my husband can handle him though, should we meet.”

The Bull smirks as Dorian’s foot begins to to slide up the inside of his leg. He puts his palm on Dorian’s ankle and squeezes gently, enjoying the flush that pinks his cheeks and the lazy heat in Dorian’s eyes. “I can handle him, can I?” the Bull rumbles.

“Oh yes,” Dorian says, smiling into his cup of tea. “I think you’ve proven yourself quite adept at handling him. Parts of him, at least.”

“Think I can meet those parts again before we get out of here?” Bull asks. Dorian grins and pulls him back to their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wonder what my notes were to my artist for Dorian's outfit, I basically asked for [Tevinter concept art](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/32/bd/ab/32bdab65aba204f1a2f47c16ff153396.png) crossed with [Jupiter Ascending](https://www.elcorteingles.es/sgfm/SGFM/contents/images/uploads/2016/11/5829d2204a34163a5700aebb.jpg).


	2. Chapter 2

Nevarra City isn’t quite as sprawling as Val Royeaux -- or as quaint as Denerim -- but it lives easily with its history in a way Minrathous doesn’t. In Tevinter, history belongs to the Alti; the Soporati have no history worth preserving and it’s created a city of two distinct halves that live quite separately from each other. There’s an appeal to eating Nevarran sorbetti while sitting in the shade of the huge marble Chantry in the centre of the city, people watching from the ages-old steps. Bull particularly enjoys how even a building as magnificent as the cathedral could get lost in the every day bustle of market stalls.

“Think we can give up the whole thing and enjoy Nevarra, kadan?” the Bull asks, reaching out and taking Dorian’s hand. Dorian snorts, not turning away from the stall of antique books he’s perusing. “You’re right, Nevarra isn’t half as good as being rogues and vagabonds.”

Dorian lifts their joined hands and kisses the Bull’s knuckles, smiling at him so his crow’s feet deepen. There are plenty of Orleisians -- inevitably some of them end up with charmed jewelry before Dorian decides that he needs to branch out. He says it with an expression the Bull always associates with trouble, and so he isn’t very surprised when Dorian suddenly pulls him down an alley. It’s an unremarkable space between buildings, with trash piled up against the walls.

A simple incantation and out from amongst the trash, where Dorian’s clever eyes must have spotted it, scurries a rat. It looks up at the pair of them and cleans its whiskers, before disappearing back the way it came.

The Bull’s a little disappointed it didn’t do anything more interesting, and Dorian asks him what he expects a rat, even an undead one, to do.

“That another trick from the Circle?” the Bull grunts.

“Naturally, though I perfected it later at my family’s estate. The expressions on everyone’s faces when a reanimated rat runs across the parlour floor is ideal entertainment when one hates everyone else in the room.”

Dorian chuckles at a memory. The thought of an undead rat now running around the streets of Nevarra unnerves the Bull, even if it’s one of Dorian’s. Dorian turns his clever eyes to the Bull and his face immediately softens; of course he knows what the Bull is thinking.

He reaches for his hand and kisses the Bull’s knuckles, his smile a soft thing. “Don’t fear, Amatus, there’s no spirits involved. It’s only a rat, and that spell only lasts a few hours. The very worst that’ll happen is it dies again some place inconvenient. Nevarra won’t fall beneath a tide of rats.”

The Bull cups his cheek and strokes his strong jawline. “A single rat won’t cause much trouble either.”

Dorian smiles against his palm, eyes alight with trouble. Over the course of the morning they reanimate several more rats and a pair of pigeons, found beneath the window pane that had been their untimely demise. He touches none of them nor his staff, only needing to wave his hand and mutter an incantation before they scurry away to live a little longer doing whatever it is city rats and birds do.

While Dorian sends off the latest rat returned to the living, the Bull pulls out a pot of paint from his sherwani and turns to the alley wall.

“I don’t recognise that glyph,” Dorian says when he sees what the Bull is doing.

The Bull hums as he steps back, looking over what he’d painted with a critical eye. “We used them on Seheron. Best way to contact any undercover Ben-Hassrath. You read them inside out then around, like this--” he traces the lines of the shadowmark-- “it reads that the baker knows more than she says, to trust the fisherman, and to expect trouble the first week of Bloomingtide.”

Dorian squints at him. “And why did you paint nonsense on the side of a building?”

“You and I know it’s nonsense,” the Bull says, scrubbing his paint-covered hand on his pants. Dorian wrinkles his nose but his long-established dislike of the Bull’s pants and his visceral pleasure at seeing them ruined wins out over his distaste. “Anyone else is going to see a cryptic glyph and draw their own conclusions.”

Dorian hums in thought. “Allowing their imagination to construct the worst scenario.” He reaches out and touches the Ben-Hassrath glyph. The lines begin to glow and the Bull looks over at Dorian with a raised eyebrow. “However, any mage will be able to tell it’s inert -- lay a warding spell over it, they might begin to wonder why.”

“One day I’ll be half the vagabond you are.”

Dorian snorts but his moustache twitches like it always does when he’s not-so-secretly pleased. He takes the Bull’s hand and leads him back out the alley. “I have many more years of practice, Amatus, but I’m sure you can think of some way to repay me for my expertise.”

That evening, the Bull keeps his promise to take Dorian to the opera, something he’d only come to appreciate once he’d started living in Nevarra.

Tevinter operas always had the girl running away from an arranged marriage -- only to come back, be married, and discover the domestic bliss of being a wife and mother. She would even come to love her husband, who had just spent the better part of the second act killing her lover, her brother, her cousin and her uncle. Nevarran operas had the girl running away from her tyrannical father and disguising herself as a serving boy alongside the similarly-disguised prince. The brother she lost at sea would return in triumph and her uncle revealed to be her real father. The arias were also prettier and generally less focussed on the joys of fulfilling one’s duties to their family. The Bull would prefer Nevarran operas even without a childhood of being dragged to the opera houses in Minrathous; the degree to which Dorian enjoyed them was positively _gleeful_.

Dorian walks back to their inn humming the catchy tune from the opening scene, the one with the sort of barely concealed dirty lyrics and rhyming double entendres he enjoys singing while sitting in his study. The Bull enjoyed the opera but it’s nothing compared to how much he enjoys Dorian, unself-conscious and happy as he leads him by the hand through the city. It’s all he can do not to taste that smile, but they’re both old men who feel things like walking up and down Nevarra all day. Making out in dark alleyways lost its appeal years ago.

The Bull leaves their washroom and sees Dorian sat at the window, an open book on his lap abandoned to stare out. He has a soft, sad sort of expression, with far-away eyes that don’t seem to see the lights of the Nevarra docks or the boats bobbing on the Minanter. The Bull announces his presence by stepping on a squeaky floorboard and Dorian looks over, smiling a little, before going back to the window. The Bull stops just behind him, brushing the hair from his neck to press his lips to the top of Dorian’s spine. Dorian tilts his head to kiss the scars on his hands and they stand like that in silence, the Bull looking out the window and Dorian in his own thoughts.

“I miss the sea,” he says quietly. The Bull hums but says nothing. “Sometimes I dream I can still hear the sea against the cliffs, only to wake and find it was the wind in the trees or you breathing, Amatus.”

Sometimes the Fade whispers like the ocean to the Bull, and the breeze tastes of spices and citrus. They are not happy memories. “You can still go back to Minrathous,” Bull murmurs. “See your mother, and Mae. Visit Felix.”

Dorian stands suddenly and turns to Bull with an intense look in his eyes and places his hands against the Bull’s chest. “However much I miss the sea, it doesn’t compare to how much I have missed you.” He leans up and kisses the Bull’s bottom lip. “I left the sea for us.”

The Bull cups Dorian’s face and draws him into in a gentle kiss. He’s always tried to be worthy of Dorian -- since they got married, since Dorian came home to him. Probably since the Inquisition, when neither of them knew what they were doing or what this was.

Dorian smiles, because he knows, because he’s trying just as hard. He gets embarrassed though, turning away with pink staining his cheeks. “I’m sorry, I’ve had a lovely evening, I’ve no need to get maudlin,” he says as he fumbles with the buckles on his clothes.

The Bull catches him before he can retreat very far and kisses the corner of his mouth. “Nothing to be sorry for, big guy.” He tilts his head as though a thought just occurred to him. “Maybe next winter, we can take a house in Cumberland.”

The smile Dorian gives him is radiant.

***

The Nevarra City Library is every bit as grand as the chantry, with vaulted ceilings so high the Bull can almost see trapped clouds pressing up against the stained glass windows. The reverent air and hushed footsteps makes it feel like a place of worship. Dorian takes a deep breath, like he wants to take some of it into himself, and breathes out with a smile more peaceful than any he’s had in weeks. He then disappears into the stacks, leaving the Bull to his own devices.

It’s not a surprise -- there’s about twenty years worth of precedent -- so the Bull heads to the more popular section. It’s nice to check up on Varric now and again and see if he’s still getting mileage out of the Tevinter magister and his torrid romance with the Qunari mercenary. After determining that he is (and picking up the latest instalment to teasingly read passages from and then not notice when it ends up on Dorian’s desk) the Bull starts wandering the stacks to locate his husband.

Dorian is hunched over a book on the floor that’s as tall as the Bull’s horns are wide and impressively thick. He’s dragged it into the aisle probably because trying to get it up on to a lectern or a table will only throw out his back. Dorian looks pretty intent, however, and won’t thank him to interrupt him now. The Bull wanders away to the poetry section; if Dorian’s still there when he circles back around, the Bull will help him with his book to spare his knees if nothing else.

Some time later, another book tucked into the Bull’s sherwani, Dorian’s relocated to a nearby table with his book and is in intense but quiet discussion with a young man. He looks Rivaini, with deep brown skin and thick braids cascading over his shoulder, but it’s the surprise when he sees the Bull without any fear or disgust that gives him away.

“Having fun, kadan?” the Bull asks, brushing the short hairs at the nape of Dorian’s neck.

He hums distractedly, still focussed intently on the glyph in the book. “Téo has fascinating ideas about language and its effect on magic. To cast Fireball requires a glyph, yes, but thought and intention play a part. I think _ignitus_ , but Téo thinks _incendiar_ , which is closer to _incendium_ in Tevene-” he blinks and looks up at the Bull. “This is Téodoro,” he says belatedly, gesturing to the young man beside him.

Téo gives the Bull a little wave and smiles awkwardly. The Bull tries not to laugh. “You planning on setting something on fire?”

“N-no, ser!” Téo stutters quickly. “I was looking up Necromantic glyphs, and Master Pavus had the book I wanted, a-and he was very knowledgable, and we began to talk...”

“I’m very knowledgable, Amatus,” Dorian says, preening a little until the Bull kisses his cheek. “I cannot recall the glyph he’s describing, however, nor find it in any of the tomes here.”

“There have been-” Téo leans in, casting furtive glances out towards the library. “I’ve heard there have been reanimated rats appearing in homes, and strange glyphs in the streets. I had thought the two might be related, but I can’t -- I can’t even determine that the glyphs are Necromantic let alone what it is they are meant to be doing.” He sighs, missing the significant look the Bull and Dorian shoot each other. “I’ve spent the better part of the day looking through every book I can think of -- Nevarra has Thedas’ largest collection of Necromantic texts -- I should at least be able to find something-”

“All day, you said,” Dorian injects. The Bull snorts, knowing exactly what is happening. “Perhaps a step back is needed -- would you like to continue our discussion elsewhere?”

Téo blinks before his face falls, obviously conflicted. The Bull chuckles, his hand falling from Dorian’s neck to settle at his waist. “There’s a café near our inn that makes some baklava you should try. Dorian’s treat,” he says.

Dorian huffs, as if he wasn’t about to make the same offer. The offers of pastry were too good to pass on, however, and Téo goes with them in search of some lunch.

The Bull can follow some of their conversation -- more than he could have before he met Dorian -- but the mages soon lose him. Téo reminds him of the Inquisition and Adaar as he earnestly tries to save the world -- though he might be spending too much time in the library to do it. The baklava is delicious and the tired, almost defeated look shadowing Téo’s face lifts a little. It is, overall, a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

On the short walk back to their inn, as they brush the pastry crumbs from their clothes, Dorian ducks into an alleyway. The Bull follows while Téo lingers at the entrance. “Master Pavus?” he calls.

“My apologies,” Dorian calls back, glancing over his shoulder as he crouches down. “I saw her and-”

At Dorian’s feet is a limp heap of fur much larger than a rat. The Bull suspects it might have once been a brown tabby cat -- the unfortunate creature is dead now.

“I couldn’t just leave her,” Dorian finishes quietly.

“Oh, _tadinha_ ,” Téo says as gently. He crouches down next to Dorian, his eyes soft as he reaches out to pet over the dirty, still fur.

“Téo.” Dorian’s already reaching for his staff, the purple light gathering in his palm and swirling around his grip to coalesce in the focus crystal. The Bull has seen him work enough magic, and known him for just as long, to guess what he’s doing, but Téo looks alarmed. “Reach out, over there, just above her. What do you suppose that is?”

“I-” Téo tilts his head. “That’s the cat? She’s still here?”

Dorian nods slowly. “The books you scoured this morning, I’d be surprised if they mentioned this. If they did they might have to admit they don’t know why, but cats are peculiarly loath to leave and easy to coax back. Even Ferelden’s know that a cat is usually in the company of a mage, though not for as nefarious a reason as they usually think. We spoke of intention-”

The magic dissipates and Dorian leans over to scoop up the cat as she blinks big green eyes at all of them. He strokes her ears and she lets out a trilling purr. “It takes not a lot to bind a spirit to an empty vessel for a little bit -- to afix it more permanently takes more finesse. Magic works best when you want it to. And who can help but love what returns to you?” Téo looks like he’s in awe, which softens to something more tender when Dorian passes him the kitten. He scratches under her chin and she licks his fingers in return, still chirruping, and the Bull witnesses the exact moment Téo falls in love.

“Now then,” Dorian says, hands on his hips as he tries not to smile too broadly, “what are you going to name her?”

They see off Téo and the cat, now Catarina, before Dorian and the Bull settle in for a quiet evening. Dorian looks like a painter’s model, stretched out on the bed in only a loose pair of silk sleep pants that sit temptingly low on his hips. Effortlessly artful but not perfect -- his silvered hair is loose around his shoulders except for the lock that keeps falling into his face to Dorian’s apparent consternation. He keeps sighing and looking up from his book, the firelight catching on his scars and turning them to silver against his bronze skin.

The Bull had thought he would be vain, so long ago. He thought the first scar Dorian earned in the course of the Inquisition would devastate him. The archer had been lucky and had fired in the split second between Barriers; Dorian’s lucky to make out with only a star of scar tissue at his shoulder. The Bull only saw it weeks after the fact, when the Chargers return from the Western Approach and the Inquisitor’s party from the Heartlands.

They fell into bed almost immediately -- the Bull had missed Dorian in the weeks they’d spent apart but he makes it a joke, laughs before biting a bruise into Dorian’s hipbone. Later he strokes over the scar and says something flippant, something about Dorian succumbing to Southern fashions and being one unkempt beard away from being a true Ferelden mountain man. Dorian had snorted, rolling over to face the Bull and placing a hand on his chest. The moment turns strangely solemn; the Bull waits for him to speak and tries not to squirm as Dorian’s thumb brushes over an old scar of his own.

“I’m not ashamed of my scar,” he’d said, speaking to the Bull’s collarbones. “In Tevinter, I’d never have gotten such scars. Can you imagine? The Pavus heir nearly laid low by a single lucky arrow.” He pauses for a moment. “Perhaps it’s overly sentimental, but the scar is proof I’m living the life I choose to. Not even my father can take it from me.” He’d looked up then with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Perhaps the South truly has ruined me.”

The Bull had held him close then and thought a lot about choices, and bodies as tools as weapons.

Now the Bull sets aside his book and ambles over to the bed to join him. Dorian glances up at his approach, a pleased little smile appearing when the Bull sits beside him and reaches for his hand. “Varric’s newest not holding your attention?” he says, pretending to sneer.

The Bull kisses over his knuckles. “Not as much as you, kadan. I wanted to share something I picked up.”

Dorian makes an interested hum as the Bull settles closer to him. The bed wasn’t made with Qunari in mind but it wouldn’t have matter anyway; Dorian lays with his head on the Bull’s chest, ear to his heart.

The Bull takes out the little poetry book from the inside of his sherwani and flicks to the page he’s dogeared. “ _My River runs to thee_ ,” he reads lowly, his hand coming to rest on the soft skin of Dorian’s neck. “ _Blue Sea! Wilt welcome me? My River wait reply — Oh Sea — look graciously —I'll fetch thee Books, from spotted nooks-_ ”

“That’s not what it says,” Dorians says, lifting his head to mock-glare at the Bull. His cheeks are going pink and the Bull can feel how his heartbeat’s picked up.

“It’s not? My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

“Your jokes, however, remain as awful.”

Dorian is leaning up, his eyes flicking to the Bull’s mouth; he wants the Bull to kiss him. The Bull wants to kiss him, but he has a poem to finish.

“ _Say — Sea — Take Me!_ ” he murmurs just before he closes the scant distance between his lips and Dorian’s.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s the missing books that do it. The innkeeper makes no secret of how exciting she finds rotting rats and mystery glyphs the next morning, but then she goes quiet and a little frightened. Supposedly it would take quite the mage to overcome all the wards woven into the stones of the library that guard against theft, which was almost as concerning as the actual subject matter of the missing tomes.

Dorian waits until the innkeeper moves away to turn to the Bull with an expectant expression. The Bull grins and remarks that Varric would probably be insulted to know they didn’t ward his books.

“How did you know the books were warded?”

“Knew Vints did it, figured Nevarrans would too. Was always a little surprised you never did anything to yours.”

“And risk harm to my books? Not likely.”

It would only take a few days for the books to resurface -- the Bull had tucked them behind shelves and under tables, safe but for a layer of dust. Word spreads fast, however, of a rogue necromancer with a concerning interest in thaumaturgy.

“ _Thaumaturgy_? Really, Bull? That’s completely theoretical, and wholly unrelated to necromancy.”

“It looks impressive though. The polysyllabic ones are always the worst.”

Krem is at the head of the first group of mercenaries drawn to the city in turmoil, which makes the Bull unbearably smug. He’s matured into a fine mercenary captain since taking command of the Bull’s Chargers, earning himself a great many scars and stories of his own. The Bull is treated to a retelling every time he comes home with most of his Chargers joining in and adding on until the truth is a deeply buried kernel. He’d be proud if not for the worrying amount of rampaging wyverns Krem seems to run into; Dorian might have been proud too, if Krem hadn’t started to grey at the same time as him and had the audacity to wear it better.

Krem is both worried and deeply unsurprised to find the both of them in Nevarra City. He grumbles through three drinks at the tavern the Chargers have all but commandeered as Nevarran headquarters before he even lets them get a word in edgeways. He only believes it’s purely coincidence when the Bull points out that he’s sorely unprepared to be running at any kind of trouble.

Krem still snorts and gives him a disbelieving look. “Sure, Chief, like you haven’t rushed into a fight with nothing _but_ your axe, cock out and scarring the lot of us.” Something behind them catches Krem’s attention, and Dorian turns to see Skinner -- whose grey hair and additional scars only make her more ferocious-looking -- silently communicating something to Krem using just her eyebrows. He gets up from the table, leaving his fourth drink still mostly full. “Look, I got help coming, so there’s no need to be getting yourself involved. Enjoy your operas, old man-”

“You can be assured I will, Cremisius-”

“And stay out of trouble,” Krem says, stern finger pointed at the pair of them.

Dorian raises a small army of rats in retaliation, along with several more pigeons and a great many spiders. The Bull invents more complex sigils to paint, until Dorian looks at his latest work intensely, barely even blinking as he lays the ward over it. “It’s beautiful, Amatus.”

“It’s nothing.” The thought of something born of necessity and the spilled blood on Seheron being _beautiful_ sits wrong with him. The Bull turns away but Dorian gently guides him back with fingers curled under his chin.

“It is beautiful, because it’s _yours_ ,” he insists. “You’ve made it different from the thing made on Seheron using nothing more than your beautiful brain.” Dorian tugs him down until he can place a kiss between the Bull’s horns. Emotion would choke the words in his throat had he any. Dorian kisses the side of his nose. “The spell that glyph would produce would be _magnificent_ ,” he says as he lets the Bull go.

“Could you actually do that? Make it real?”

“In theory.” The tips of Dorian’s ears start to go red, interestingly, even as he lifts his chin haughtily. “After what you pulled with the thaumaturgy texts, I admit I grew curious. I am, after all, no stranger to theoretical magics. To actually craft something would require help -- even Alexius needed mine.” He pauses to think for a moment before he grins. “I already have a mage in mind.”

Their eldest daughter arrives in Nevarra City a few days later, and much like Krem brings some Friends with her. Hissera, as nobody but her parents call her when they attempt to be stern, is short for a Qunari with only an inch or so on Dorian. It’s an important inch; as soon as she steps into the tavern Sera envelopes her father in a hug while he’s trying to have an intense conversation with Téo about the possibilities of creating spells from existing glyphs. She also takes the opportunity to complain loudly that it’s the first time they’ve left their home in ages only to have ‘some mage pissing about’.

“We do leave our home occasionally, you know,” Dorian says, rolling his eyes even as he’s kissing the red hair between Sera’s curly horns.

Sera laughs as she lets go to hug her other father, going up on her toes to sling her arms around the Bull’s neck. The Bull gives her a wet kiss on the cheek, making Sera squeal and duck to escape. “It’s good to see you too, _imekari_ ,” he says as Sera grimaces and makes a show of wiping her cheek.

“Pssh, course it is, I’m great. Lucky I was near -- working Tantervale now, more rich knobs out that way -- so’s I could help Krem.” Dorian must pull some kind of face as Sera’s mouth twists. “I know, I should have wrote and said somethin’. I’m sorry, Dads.”

It takes the wind right out of Dorian’s sails and he has a short moment to look conflicted before he sighs. “It’s OK, _figlia_ , we suspected as much.”

“But hey, you remembered there’s more Thedas out there,” Sera says, her contrite look lifting like a black cloud as she claps her hands together. Bad moods had never been able to stick to her. “We’ll deal with this piece of shite and I can show you the fun bits in town, yeah? Before you get too old and crusty.”

“Sera, the only reason you’d have to show us the fun parts was if you wished to compare notes,” Dorian says primly. “As unbelievable as it seems, your father and I are _very_ familiar with that part of the city -- and in most cities in the north. You’re too young to even remember the Vivazi plaza, with the dancers, remember, Amatus? Oh, stop that.” Dorian rolls his eyes as Sera makes retching noises. “You’re as bad as Cremisius sometimes.”

“I’m hurt, Altus,” Krem says, choosing that moment to come over to their table. He returns Sera’s hug with one arm, the other hand pressed to his chest in mock hurt. “Really. Got me in all three of my feelings.”

The Chargers had always followed Krem’s lead and now they descend as a hoard on Sera; the noise as they all try to greet her, call for more drinks, and demand stories at once is instantly deafening. It’s intensely nostalgic and the Bull sits back for a moment to enjoy it. He doesn’t know everyone -- they all know him though and he gets a few simple greetings, nods and ‘Chief’.

There’s a small noise, a quiet inhale beneath the noise that only he hears, and the Bull looks over to see Téo gazing at Sera like he can’t believe she could exist and he doesn’t want to blink in case she disappears.

“Téo,” the mage blurts and promptly goes bright red. “That is -- my name is Téodoro.”

Sera grins, her cheeks dimpling. “Yeah? You here to help with the mage knob?”

Téo nods, fiddling with the end of one of his braids. It’s probably for the best Dorian hasn’t yet noticed the very obvious mooning happening beside him, distracted by Dalish and a couple other ‘archers’, no doubt on purpose.

“Good,” Krem says. He claps Téo on the shoulder hard, and nearly knocks him out of his seat. He’ll have to get used to that, the Bull thinks, if he wants to stick around. “We’ll need the extra hands until the rest of the help arrives.”

“Betcha nothing’ll get done until Max is here.” Sera nudges Krem with her elbow, who nudges her back. “Everyone knows she’s the brains.”

“No bet. C’mon, niblet, let’s go-”

“How much of the ‘help’ for this mage is in actuality my daughters, Krem?” Dorian asks with a pleased little grin.

Krem gives Sera a side-ways glance that contains multitudes. “They’ve got their uses, Altus, I’ll give them that.”

Sera nods. “We all know Krem’s muscle -- I’m here to be eyes. Me n’ my Friends. If the mage shows so much as an arsecheek, we’ll know about.” She shrugs a shoulder and rubs at her arm. “Mostly, though, my dads were here. Woulda come even without Krem sending word. Gotta make sure you don’t break your hip or anything.”

“Of course, _figlia_. Off you go then, go catch your mage.”

The pair of them leave, taking most of the Chargers and a regretful-looking Téo with them, and Dorian leans back further in his seat with a smirk so smug it makes the Bull chuckle. “Would’ve thought you’d be more upset, kadan,” the Bull says as he gives in and kisses the edge of that smile. “Sera and Max had to be asked by Krem before they came to Nevarra, and he’s here for work. He’s already come and gone.”

Dorian’s grin goes sharp. “I’m not upset. Krem is perfectly capable of handling a single errant mage on his own -- any mercenary band in the city would be.” The Bull is conflicted for a moment -- his boys are the best at what they do -- before he has to concede that a single mage isn’t actually very threatening. “He needed help, and they must have as well to respond so quickly. I can only conclude that what they needed help with was us, Amatus, and it serves them right. No, I’m not upset at all.”

The Bull throws his head back and laughs. “Chances they’re calculating how to get back in our good graces?”

“Better than good. I’m hoping to get a proper apology in the form of guimauves, perhaps a new staff blade.”

“You know,” the Bull says, “when they find out it’s us, they might get mad. Just a little.”

Dorian settles into the Bull’s side, where he fits so well. “Just the guimauves then, perhaps.”

***

With Sera and her Friends posed to get a glimpse of their arsecheeks, or something more incriminating, they give up causing trouble in the city. Becoming regular fixtures in the tavern is almost as fun; despite telling them not to get involved, Krem asks for their advice in the planning and movement of his men. The Bull and Krem still work well together after all these years, and have space enough to disagree.

Krem coddles his men too much, the Bull snipes after an extended back and forth.

The Bull, Krem retorts, is full of shit. “Learned from the best mother hen there is,” he sneers. The Bull can’t even bring himself to argue when Dorian snorts inelegantly into his hand.

Sera keeps them entertained with stories of exactly what she’s been doing in Tantervale. The heavily-forested region around the city had developed something of a bandit problem of late and the Lord Chancellor is too caught up in his own machinations to care. Varric was the one to get word out to the Friends of Red Jenny and was also bankrolling the mercenaries on the down low -- which he could afford as a part of making the lords’ lives difficult in the first place.

The Jennies helped the mercenaries, as guides and extra swords, and recovered the stuff the bandits stole. They were also happy to relieve Tantervale’s nobility of their extra gold, and anything else they could get their hands on.

“One of ‘em got all his shirts lifted and turned to knickers,” Sera boasts to the uproarious delight of the gathered Chargers. “Learnt that one from Aunt Sera.”

Her fun Aunt, the one that had enlisted her help with pranks and had cookies with her after, had always been Sera’s favourite. Hissera had emulated her with a child’s single-minded dedication that she never truly grew out of; instead she’d learned to use a bow and joined the Red Jennies, with only a few protests from her fathers. A Friend of Red Jenny was really quite a fitting legacy for the Pavus name, and it was only right a Tal-Vashoth should be proud of his professional menace.

If Sera figured out who was behind the glyphs and their enchantments, the rats and pigeons dropping dead without provocation, the stolen books, or multitude of harassed Orleisians, she said nothing. The Bull had a suspicion she knew, however. Krem was attacking the problem head on and only gotten more white hairs for his trouble. Téo even tries to help, and to everyone’s surprise the time spent in a very different crowd from the one that frequents the library seems to agree with him. It only takes a little while before he can keep up with the best of them -- dirty jokes, ribauld stories and all -- which gets him Sera’s attention more than anything.

Sera holds fast to doing not much of anything until Maxen arrives. The Bull and Dorian don’t expect their secret to last once she does. If anyone were to recognise Dorian’s magic, it’s the daughter he taught -- the Bull still remembers how her face lit up with awe and the spirit’s glow as she held it cupped in her palms for the first time.

Sera must have had her Jennies keep a look out, as Maxen is taken out into the city without so much as stopping by the tavern to see her fathers first. When she does walk in, every Charger between Maxen and her fathers wisely steps aside. She has Dorian’s scowl as well as his magic, the one that sends lesser men fleeing. It didn’t matter that she was a full head shorter than everyone else in the tavern or was still dirty from travelling, her black hair escaping from her bun.

Maxen’s dark eyes snap to Dorian, levelling an accusatory finger at him. “You! It’s you!”

Dorian looks back with a mild expression. “Good morning to you too, _figlia_.”

“I have no idea what’s crawled up her robes,” Sera says from behind her sister while holding her hands up. She does indeed look very confused -- the Bull owes himself two gold if she really didn’t know.

“I’ll get Krem,” the Bull says, standing from their table.

“Thank you, Amatus. Girls, let’s find somewhere better than here to speak.”

The back room only has a flimsy wooden door for privacy, but Maxen is clutching her staff and giving the floor a murderous look. It’ll have to do.

“It’s them,” Maxen says not a moment after the door closes behind Krem and the Bull. “It’s probably all been them. It’s his magic, anyway.”

There’s a long, stretched out moment, a bowstring pulled taut with their children’s reactions behind it. Dorian looks at the Bull with a complicated expression that the Bull is probably echoing.

Krem eventually groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Maker’s balls, Chief, you run out of paper to write with or something?”

“C’mon, Krempuff,” the Bull says as he slings an arm over his shoulders. “Where’s the fun in _writing_?”

Krem huffs, trying and failing not to look amused. “We’re both too old for this. If you’re that hard pressed for shit to do, I have a couple of suggestions-”

“Wait,” Sera yells, jumping up from the barrel she’d been sat on. Her mouth twists as she looks between her fathers. “All the ooky stuff?”

“Them,” Maxen repeats, “but why?”

Dorian takes a step towards her and reaches out to where she’s still clutching her staff in a death grip. “I missed you, Maximina. Terribly. We love you and miss you when you’re gone.”

Maxen’s face crumples and she folds into Dorian, pressing her face into his shoulder. “I missed you too,” she mumbles, so quietly the Bull almost doesn’t hear it.

Sera lets out a loud cackle that looks like it startles even her and she wraps the both of them in a hug. “Missed you too, Dads! Even when you’re fuckin terrible.”

“I could say the same for you, _figlia_. ”

Sera’s giggling uncontrollably into Dorian’s shoulder, until even her sister snorts and nudges her. The pair of them start a slapfight over Dorian’s head, who can only roll his eyes and look so indulgent and pleased with himself that the Bull’s heart feels fit to burst from it.

“You should have heard that one Orleisian talk!” Sera is saying as they leave the store room. “Like something out of one of your operas. Think he’s gonna try and compose a thing.” She stops and turns to Dorian, a grin stretching from ear to ear. “I’m gonna tell Uncle Varric.”

“If you love me, you’ll spare me that.”

Sera cackles and Dorian only looks more pained. “Nope,” she says, popping the ‘p’ with relish. “Gonna do it. S’what happens when you pull ooky shite like this. Rats, Dads? One died in a bakery and you would’ve thought it’d eaten her dog the way she went on. She probably deserved it, thinking. Still. Gonna tell Varric everything.”

“Amatus, please, restrain your daughter.”

“Nah,” the Bull says, kissing the top of Dorian’s head. “Figure we pretty much deserve this. Have to go talk to Krem about some suggestions of his.”

Krem, it turns out, only has one suggestion to fill the Bull’s apparent copious amounts of spare time. He points out the dwarf sat on her own in the corner of the tavern, nursing a tankard and projecting such a thick aura of ‘fuck off’ the Bull could cut through it with a knife. The Bull grabs his own tankard and makes his way over to her, sitting across from her before she can notice his approach. The surprise as she snaps her head up and blinks at him quickly gives way to a baleful glare that could set lesser Qunari on fire. “Chief,” she says, sullenly taking a sip of whatever’s in her tankard. “Aclassi getting you to do his dirty work then? Can’t even give me the boot himself, the piece of nugshit.”

“You this cheery with everyone that shares a drink with you?”

The dwarf gives him a flat look. “Name’s Heulwen. The boys call me Sunshine on account of my sunny disposition. I was a scout.” She reaches up to the bandages covering the right side of her face and what’s left of her eye. Her thick blonde curls try valiantly to escape and the edge of a scar, pink and barely healed, slices through her casteless tattoo. Her face goes shuttered and she turns away from the Bull. “Ain’t good for much of anything now.”

The Bull makes a thoughtful noise, taking a sip of his drink, but declining to say anything.

Sunshine grits her teeth. “I know why you’re here, you can cut the coy shit. Krem’s been good to me but the Chargers don’t need a scout who can’t see or an archer who can’t shoot. Maybe he thinks it’ll hurt less coming from you, but I’m no good for anything anymore and I know it.”

“Never met anybody so far who was good for nothing.” The Bull pauses with his tankard half-raised. “Met some real shit-for-brains, but they were good at being rich and spending money. Getting drunk too if they were the adventurous type.”

Sunshine snorts. “I’m a decent swordsman in a pinch but I wouldn’t know what to do with a mace if you handed me one right now.”

“I figure you swing it at the other guy until he stops moving.”

“Rather hang back and let you lot get in poking range.” She goes quiet, fidgeting with her tankard and not looking the Bull in the eye.

“But what are you _good_ at?” the Bull asks. Sunshine looks at him with another formidable scowl and opens her mouth, probably to insult him. “Not  fighting. You were lucky until you weren’t. Most people are dead after that -- you were good enough that you aren’t. Now what else?”

Sunshine opens her mouth before closing it again. She doesn’t talk for a long couple of moments. “Ma always said I had a pretty good green thumb,” she says quietly, almost embarrassed. “Could keep almost anything alive in Dust Town. Ain’t easy.”

The Bull rubs at his beard, grinning as he contemplates the dwarf, who glares back even while losing the battle not to blush. “Dorian’s been trying to plant a kitchen garden for years. I don’t think we’ve ever had a sprout before he kills the lot. Think you could do any better?”

“Yeah, probably.” Sunshine squints at him, waiting for the catch. “That a job offer, Chief?”

“If you want it.”

Sunshine grunts and glares into her tankard. The Bull takes his drink and goes to find Dorian, who’s sat at their usual table. Maxen is being introduced to some new Chargers and Jennies, and is bearing it all with a brave smile. Dorian will probably rescue her before long, and they’ll settle into a bracing discussion of theoretical magics, with Téo being invited to join in no doubt. Téo in the meantime is sitting at Sera’s side and smirking at whatever she’s relaying to him -- he probably hasn’t taken his eyes off her once.

Dorian lifts his face for the kiss the Bull obligingly drops onto his forehead. “Where were you?”

“Doing Krem’s dirty work. Got us someone who’ll help feed that apprentice of yours.”

Dorian gives him a shrewd look. “How do you know I was going to ask Téodoro?”

“If you don’t, he might beg.” Dorian concedes the point with only a pointed sigh and leans into the Bull’s shoulder. The Bull places a palm on Dorian’s knee, and Dorian threads his fingers through the Bull’s like it’s second nature. “You’d be good at it.”

“I know. For all of Alexius’ flaws, he set a good example. He saved my life; I’d like to pass that along.”

The Bull presses his lips to Dorian’s temple, and Dorian swipes his thumb over the beating pulse in his wrist. They sit like that, a bit of quiet in the chaotic noise of the tavern. “I meant throwing books n’ bossing people about.”

Dorian snorts. “Never let it be said I can’t be talented at those too.” And he doesn’t move from the Bull’s side.

***

Sera does send a letter to Varric detailing what happened, to Dorian’s consternation, as well as a letter to the Jennies in Tantervale. “I figure,” she says slowly, later, in the inn room the Bull and Dorian are clearing up as they prepare to head back to their villa. “You know, some of them even have half a brain. They can keep doing what we’re doing and I can, you know. Come home for a bit. Just a bit, a week, maybe.”

“You may stay as long as you like,” Dorian says before pausing with a sly look. “You will have to share with Maxen though. My apprentice will be taking your room -- him and his cat.”

Their party on the journey back almost reminds the Bull of their days in the Inquisition; else it’s the set up for a bad joke. Two Qunari, a Vint magister, a couple of mages, and a one-eyed dwarf all step out of a tavern. The Bull only has to glance at Sera before she starts giggling at the absurdity of it, and Téo’s bemused look only makes her laugh harder.

At the outskirts of Nevarra City, Sera calls out a rider headed their way. “Think she’s one of Krem’s. Fuck me, she’s going fast!”

The Bull wishes he’d brought something bigger than the knife in his boot at that moment -- or a faster horse -- but the rider’s on them quickly and she only seems to have eyes for Sunshine. The dwarf hadn’t said a word when she’d arrived at the inn with her bags and a grim expression, but she looks at the other woman now with an expression equal parts anguish and wonder.

“Frosty, why the f-” she starts but Frosty is already leaping off her horse and striding up to Sunshine’s pony.

“No note? No goodbye?” Frosty yells. “Sneaking off without so much as a word my way?”

“Maker’s mercy,” Dorian mutters for the Bull’s ears only. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Think so, kadan,” the Bull says, while not even pretending not to be delighted. Dorian can only make a pained noise in response.

Sunshine is gripping her reins tightly, and her jaw is so stiff it’s a wonder she can even open it to speak. “Go back, Frosty,” she says. Her voice is flat but her one eye is bright with emotion. “You can shoot, can still work. The Chargers -- don’t throw away a good thing.”

“You think I give a shit about my job?” Frosty stops with her hands on her hips. With Sunshine on her pony the two are almost eye level. They look intently at each other with neither of them seeming willing to concede ground. “You think I care about anything but where you are? You are my good thing, or didn’t I make that clear, you stupid arse?”

“Frosty-”

“Don’t,” she says sharply. “This ain’t -- it ain’t kind, it’s cruel. It hurts more than I can take and I ain’t gonna take it.”

Sunshine makes a soft noise like she’s been stabbed. “Please don’t-”

“If I may?” Dorian says, smoothly interjecting. The two women startle like they only now remember they have an audience; Sunshine blushes red from her hairline to her collar while Frosty tries in vain to brush her windswept hair out of her hair and the dirt from her clothes. “You’re a Charger, I take it? Frosty?”

“Yes ser.”

Dorian looks at her for a moment -- not because he’s actually considering anything, but because of his flair for the dramatic. The Bull tries desperately not to roll his eyes and give the game away as Frosty fidgets with her hair some more and Sunshine looks like she desperately wishes a wyvern would appear to put her out of her misery.

“Tell me, can you cook?”

Frosty looks at Dorian like he’s asked her if she’s ever met the Arishok. “What?”

“Oh, it doesn’t have to be that,” Dorian continues, waving his hand. “Can you sew, look after animals? Even if you can only help sweep the floors that’ll be enough.”

“I don’t know what-”

“Andraste’s tiddies!” Sera yells. “Just say yes so we can get going!”

Frosty and Sunshine give Dorian identical looks of such tentative hope the Bull is struck by a sense of history repeating. This time at least history can be gentle, as Dorian returns their looks with a small smile and soft eyes. “If you’d be willing to pull your weight, you’re welcome to join us.”

“Really?” Frosty asks, more quietly than one would expect from a women who just rode like the demons of the Fade were after her because her lover hadn’t said goodbye.

“Yes, really,” Dorian says, unable to resist rolling his eyes in exasperation at the young.

“We’ll let Krem know, if he doesn’t already,” the Bull says. Frosty flushes bright red, and the Bull owes himself another two gold. “Keep us outta trouble and I don’t think he’ll mind.”

“Alright, Chief,” she says, a smile breaking like dawn on her face, “I reckon I can do that.”

 


End file.
